Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
His floppy blond hair falls across his eyes, and I knock it away, knowing he’s probably incapable of coordinating his hands to do it himself. I’m going to have to start carrying him soon. “Yeah?” he asks, his grin crooked.
“Fuck, yeah.”
“Will you tour with me? Help fix my bike? Ride with me? Me and you, together?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck, yeah. “I’m there, bro. All the fucking way.”
He clumsily falls into me, giving me the fiercest hug. The mushy twat. But, of course, I embrace it. “We’ll detail the finer points tomorrow,” he slurs, breaking away and pulling a miniature bottle of whiskey from his front pocket, opening and raising it. “But for now, we celebrate.” He downs the lot as he walks backward, taking him and the bottle out of my reach. “To freedom!” he chants raising the bottle, stumbling into the road. “And doing what the fuck we want.”
“Doing what the fuck we—” I blink, being blinded by the headlights of a car. And then I hear them.
Tires.
Screeching tires.
The sound of a horn.
“Jake!” I yell, my head snapping back and forth between him and the car. He’s frozen. Looks startled. “Jake, get out of the fucking road!” I start running, but my legs are lead, not carrying me as fast as I need them to. “Jake!”
My heart. I can feel it cracking.
“Jake!” I roar. “God, Jake, no!”
The car hits him, hurling him fifty yards up the road, and I slow to a stop, suddenly paralyzed. “No,” I whisper. “Please, no.”
The sound of his helpless body hitting the ground is chilling.
A sound I’ll never forget.
And the beats of my heart slow to nothing.
1
April 2012
* * *
My nose wrinkles. My closed eyes clench. My waking brain pounds like a motherfucker. I open one eye and come face to face with an empty bottle, the damn thing practically touching my nose. I groan and roll onto my back, away from it. Good fucking God. My head feels like an army of soldiers is stomping its way through it.
I lift my hand on a sigh and rest it on my forehead, trying to compress the thuds. Painkillers. I need painkillers. And water. Get me some fucking water.
I drag myself up, resting back on my elbows, and peek around the room, searching for more evidence of my heavy night. I spy my clothes on the floor. But no others with it. No bra, no knickers. I hitch a brow in surprise. Don’t tell me I went to bed alone.
“Water?”
I startle and look at the bathroom door, finding a naked woman—her name escapes me—leaning against the door with a glass in her hand.
“You look like you need it.” Another woman appears behind her, also naked, except for the smile she’s wearing. I definitely know her name. Fucking hell, what was I thinking entertaining Coral again? The woman is in love with me. I’m not assuming. She’s told me. Repeatedly. I knew getting into bed with her and her husband to fulfill their wild fantasies was a mistake. Now she’s left him. Now, I have a pissed off copper on my back. And now she’ll take me however I come, always drunk and, last night, even with another woman.
“Want some help up?”
Make that another two women.
You’re a fuck-up, Ward. A total, uncontrollable fuck-up.
I fall back to the mattress and pull the sheet over my head. “Any more of you hiding in there?” I ask. Jesus, I can’t remember a thing.
I hear the bedroom door open. Then silence.
Then . . .
“Okay, the orgy’s over,” Sarah says, sounding as unimpressed as usual. She’s got a nerve. I bet she’s been thrashing man after man all fucking night. “Out.”
“I’m a paying member,” one of them retorts, as indignant as fuck.
“Not if I cancel it,” Sarah counters. I can hear the smugness in her tone. “No need to get dressed,” she adds, and I peek out from under the sheet, seeing her gathering up clothes from the floor at the end of the bed and chucking them at the women. She’s pissed off. Pissed off because there were three women in my bed last night, and she wasn’t one of them.
She escorts them out, slams the door, and then starts collecting up various toys from the floor and shoving them in a basket ready to be cleaned. “Why didn’t you stay at your rental last night?” she asks.
“It’s lonely.” I swing my legs off the bed and stand. And wobble. And groan. Fuck me, why do I punish myself like this? On cue, a million flashbacks parade through my sore head, reminding me of my wrongs. As if I need reminding. But in case I do, my scar twinges too, and I rub at it as I wander to the bathroom. I can feel Sarah’s eyes on my back as I go. “What time is it?” I call back.